The Islamic roots of the conflict in Turkey

ÖMER TAŞPINAR
ÖMER TAŞPINAR


Date posted: December 22, 2013

ÖMER TAŞPINAR

The conflict between the Gülen movement and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has now taken on a very public dimension. For many in Turkey and in the West, this conflict is nothing but a power struggle. Yet, focusing solely on politics and the quest for power would be reductionist. The current conflict has deep historical, ideological and even doctrinal roots.

At the ideological level, the most important divergence is the two sides’ conflicting approach to Islam. The AKP is not a classical Islamist party, but it does come from a “political Islam” tradition. The predecessor of the AKP was the Welfare Party (RP), under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan. The ideological tradition of Erbakan was known as the “Milli Görüş” (National View) movement, which followed the precepts of classical political Islam, in the footsteps of Arab Islamist theorists like Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna in Egypt. Milli Görüş stems from the Muslim Brotherhood tradition. The Muslim Brotherhood is a “political Islam”-oriented movement that wants to come to power in order to change the governing system. It prioritizes the brotherhood of the “umma” in the classical Islamic sense, as a universal community of believers. The concept of a nation-state is rejected by the Muslim Brotherhood because it is seen as divisive and tribalist, in addition to being a relatively modern Western invention.

The Gülenists, however, come from a Sufi and Turkish brand of Islam that is not against the nation-state. On the contrary, it embraces Turkish nationalism and shows great respect for the Ottoman/Turkish state tradition. This patriotic and nationalist brand of Sufi Islam, embraced by the Gülen movement, has considerable disdain for the Arab world. The roots of the Gülen movement go back to Said Nursi (1878-1960), a preacher from Eastern Anatolia whose teachings (the Nurcu movement) emphasized the compatibility of Islam with rationalism, science and positivism. Nursi’s main contribution to Islam was a 6,000-page commentary he wrote on the Quran. This body of work is known as the “Risale-i Nur” (The Light Collection) and advocates the teaching of modern sciences in religious schools as the way of the future for an Islamic age of enlightenment. The Nurcu movement of Said Nursi, in time, has become the most popular brand of Sufism in Turkey. Its moderate, pragmatic, patriotic and harmonious approach to Turkishness, nationalism and positivism also enabled the Nurcu movement to develop a less-confrontational approach to secularism and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

A crucial aspect of the ideological difference between the AKP and the Gülenists is related to politics and the role of the state. The Nurcu/Gülenist tradition, unlike the Milli Görüş/Muslim Brotherhood/RP/AKP tradition, wanted to stay away from politics and political parties. For Said Nursi, the politicization of Islam was a dangerous path. Political Islam was bound to clash with the secular tradition of the Kemalist state. This is why Said Nursi’s Nurcu movement did not want to openly associate itself with any political party after the start of multi-party politics in 1946. Instead of political Islam, the Nurcu/Gülenist tradition embraced social and cultural Islam.

The goal became to win the hearts and minds of the masses and to educate pious, patriotic, law-abiding citizens respectful of the Turkish state tradition. The Milli Görüş tradition went the opposite way by turning itself into a political movement that repudiated Kemalist Westernization. It embraced not Turkish nationalism but universal Islam and an anti-secularist, Islamist agenda. The apolitical nature of the Nurcu/Gülenists compared to the political Islam of Erbakan’s Milli Görüş marked a crucial divergence between these two Islamic movements. To this day, the Gülenists see their mission as a societal one focused on education and consider themselves to be a grassroots-oriented civil society movement. Their long-term agenda is to create a pious generation of Muslims. Education, the media, private sector entrepreneurialism and civil society were supposed to be the major areas of Gülenist activism, not the state or politics. Yet, the Gülen movement has become more and more political in the last 20 years, partly as a result of the polarization of Turkish politics between secularists and Islamists.

Source: Today's Zaman , December 22, 2013


Related News

The Erdoğan-Did-It Conspiracy

While on its face, the notion that elements in the Turkish military loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deliberately launched a “fake coup” to justify a crackdown on Erdoğan’s enemies sounds farfetched, the belief is taking hold not only among Turkey’s staunch secularist minority and followers of Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, but also among those who know the Turkish military well.

Turkey’s Erdogan takes cue from Hitler, Stalin and Khomeini

There is something deeply disturbing about the direction in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are taking Turkey. Writing in this newspaper last week, John Lyons compared the sweeping purges to McCarthyism in the US in the 1950s. That was altogether the wrong analogy.

Pregnant with twins, Kocaeli woman detained during control at hospital

Nuriye Yalcin, a Kocaeli woman who is expected to deliver twin babies in 4.5 months was detained during a regular medical control at Izmit Medical Park Hospital on Tuesday.

Grand stage shows by Turkish Olympiad students enthrall İzmir locals

İPEK ÜZÜM, İSTANBUL Students coming to Turkey from all around the globe for the 11th International Turkish Olympiad — a festival that celebrates the Turkish language and which this year has brought together 2,000 students from 140 countries — fascinated thousands of locals in İzmir with their stage performances on Sunday night. A very large […]

Gülenist refugees from Turkey start over in U.S.

Scholars and academics may quibble about how to classify Fethullah Gülen, but pretty much all reasonable watchers of international politics agree that Erdoğan is power hungry, paranoid and increasingly autocratic.

66,000 students relocated after Turkish government shut down 15 universities over coup charges

Turkish government has closed down 15 universities across the country over their alleged links to the Gulen movement since last summer, leading 66,000 students to look for somewhere else to continue their education.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

German court fines pro-Erdoğan daily for calling Hizmet movement ‘terrorist’

Arrested Turkish TV chief writes an open letter from his jail cell

Supreme court calls on AK Party’s Şahin to substantiate claim about Gülen

Gursel Tekin: Gulen’s remarks on the third bridge are valuable

MEP: International investigation into Turkey’s rule of law needed

Islam-state-society relationship: the Turkish model

Police pressure businessmen who sued Erdoğan over Hizmet remarks

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News